


it is sweet and good to die for you

by seenonlyfromadistance



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Canon Divergence, Enjolras being really morbid and macabre, Gen, Violence, and then it's barricade fic so people die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seenonlyfromadistance/pseuds/seenonlyfromadistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Early in the fighting on the barricade, Grantaire takes a bullet for Enjolras. One by one, his friends die for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it is sweet and good to die for you

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this fic has been written by a lot of smarter, more talented people than myself, but I decided to throw my hat in the ring as well.

He doesn't see the rifle at all, only feels hands on his shoulders before someone is spinning him, tossing him out of harms way. He looses his footing and falls backwards, his back connecting with the hard cobbles of the street at the same time the gun fires. The report is a sharp crack followed by a puff of smoke and an anguished scream. Enjolras feels a spatter of something wet on his face, and he wipes it off furiously, only noticing afterwards that it's blood. 

Above him, standing near the top of the barricade, surrounded by smoke and fire, is Grantaire. Enjolras didn't even realize he was on the barricade-- in fact, he had been relatively certain Grantaire had retreated into the cafe to drown in brandy and help with the wounded-- but there he is, his face contorted and his knees buckling under him. He had jumped to action to save Enjolras, and for his troubles had gotten a bullet to his lower back. There's an exit wound near to his ribs, pouring blood-- so much blood.

He falls, and it's not graceful. Crashing to street level, he bashes into chairs and tables and paving stones. 

It takes four of them to drag him into the cafe-- Combeferre, Bahorel, a volunteer whose name Enjolras doesn't know, and Enjolras himself-- all struggling as he writhes and fights against their help. Their hands are all coated in his blood. He is screaming, trying futilely to bite back his pain. In an equally infective gesture he presses his own hands against the bleeding wounds. 

"Oh god," Grantaire says once before devolving into wordless cries, and Enjolras repeats it, and then continues to repeat it as they deposit him on a mattress at the back of the cafe and Joly rushes over to help. 

"Oh god, oh god." 

Enjolras has never heard such agony, until Grantaire's screams die out. For a moment, he's relieved, and then he can hear a frightful wheezing coming from Grantaire, and that quiet sound is somehow much worse than all the screaming. It comes with each shallow, anguished breath, each ever rarer groaning exclamation of pain, and the wheezing isn't coming from his throat, but rather from the bloody hole in his front. There's foam there too, pink froth bubbling from the wound and it's so appalling Enjolras can barely stand to look at it. 

"Look," he manages to gasp, pointing to the foam. "Look! He can't breathe, Combeferre, do something."

Grantaire lifts his head to look at what's happening, and when he sees his own bloodied and pink torso he collapses back with another miserable cry. There are tears on his cheeks. 

Enjolras tugs desperately at Combeferre's sleeve, and Combeferre swats at him, trying to find the room to actually do anything. The room is a whirl of chaos, of blood and smoke as more of the wounded are carried in and Enjolras' head is ringing. He feels very far away from himself, even as Bahorel pulls at his shoulders, tugging him away and back to the front lines. 

"Leave it to Joly and Combeferre, Enjolras. They'll take care of him. You're needed elsewhere." 

He allows himself to be led, knowing abstractly Bahorel is right and the battle continues to rage outside. He must lead them. But he can also still hear that horrible wheezing and huffing, can hear it even through all the gunfire, even through all the yelling and through Combeferre and Joly's deliberations. That horrible wheezing.

Just as he steps out the door, he hears Grantaire gasp his name, and breaks from Bahorel's grasp to rush back in. Bahorel tries to stop him, saying, "you're no help here, you'll only be in the way," but his hold on Enjolras' shoulders is half-hearted and shrugged off easily.

By the time he's at Grantaire's side, a matter of moments merely, the man has slipped into unconsciousness. Combeferre is hard at work on his chest, one palm pressed flat over the wound, giving instructions Enjolras can barely comprehend. Joly is nearby, pressing cloths to the bleeding wound at Grantaire's back, looking pale and ill himself. The three of them are crowded into not enough space. 

"It's struck his lung. We need something to seal the wound, something we can make airtight. See if you can find a strip of clean leather, perhaps, or--"

"God, where is that cow? We could use it's intestinal lining."

That Joly has just suggested slaughtering a cow in order to use it's internal organs for medicinal purposes hardly registers. Enjolras has Grantaire's hand clasped firmly between his own, and he watches the ragged up and down of Grantaire's chest. He reaches to wipe sweat and grime from Grantaire's forehead. 

"And a valve," Joly is saying. "We'll need something for that, won't we?"

"Yes, a valve--"

"You can't let him die," Enjolras says quietly and the room abruptly hushes around him. "Not yet."

"Enjolras," Bahorel urges, his face twisted with concern but nevertheless eager to return to the fighting, and aware that there's nothing he can do standing around. There's nothing Enjolras can do either, and he waves an insistent hand to try and lure Enjolras back outside. 

Enjolras gives Grantaire's hand one last squeeze and, looking Combeferre in the eye, says, "not yet."

Combeferre sees the wetness accumulating at the edges of Enjolras' eyes, and he nods; "I'll try."

And Enjolras follows Bahorel back to the battle outside the cafe.

It's disastrous, but somehow they come out on top and repeal the national guard. It is sure to be a brief reprieve, but it's something. All around him come cheers and shouts from their little group of rebels. 

Enjolras takes a deep breath, savoring the small moment of triumph, and then looks around for his friends. Courfeyrac is collapsed in a happy heap nearby, panting and smiling and dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. Enjolras spots Feuilly and Bousset off at the far left end of the barricade, along with Marius and Jehan. 

There's still one bit of ruckus over to the far right side of the barricade, and from his vantage point at the middle Enjolras can see that the source of this ruckus is none other than Bahorel himself, whirling and wheeling and bashing with three members of the National Guard. Enjolras rushes over to help, clambering across the edge of the barricade. 

When he gets close, Enjolras calls Bahorel's name; Bahorel turns with a grin and a dismissive wave to leave him to it, and then, with a cringe, disappears back into his fight.

Bahorel is on his way to dead when Enjolras finally arrives and manages to pull him away from his fighting. He missed the moment when Bahorel was wounded, but there it is, a deep gash on his chest that's pouring blood, and Bahorel has one hand pressed over it. The moment they are away from the guards, back within their own territory behind the barricade, Bahorel stumbles and slips to the pavement. His back is trembling and he struggles to stand solidly on his own two feet. Nothing about Bahorel has ever seemed weak, and the sight of his fingers now, shaking ever so slightly, turns Enjolras' stomach.

"You've done your part, my friend," he says, kneeling to lift Bahorel from where he has fallen, pulling one arm over his shoulder to help ease the burden of carrying him. It's clear the strike in his chest is fatal; there is too much blood for it to be a anything but fatal. But at least, Enjolras thinks, there is no foam and no wheezing. Immediately he feels guilty for having thought it.

"I can walk," Bahorel moans. He takes two feeble attempts at steps before collapsing against Enjolras completely. Heavy as he is, his crumpling body takes Enjolras to the ground too. 

Enjolras shushes him, holding tightly to the firm muscles of Bahorel's back; "Let me carry you. You need help."

"No, I don't think-- Fuck," Bahorel groans, and it is his last word. He dies there in the street, his eyes fluttering closed mere inches from Enjolras' face. 

With great effort, and accepting no help from anyone, Enjolras carries Bahorel's heavy body inside the cafe to lay him with their dead and wounded. He leaves Courfeyrac looking stricken near the center of the barricade and in charge of operations for a while.

At his entrance, Joly rushes over to him, clearly thinking that he or Bahorel needs help.

His delicate, trembling hands flicker over Enjolras' blood stained face and Bahorel's blood stained chest.

"No, no," Enjolras says, brushing Joly off. "We're beyond help."

It's then that Joly realizes that Bahorel is dead. He is the first of their core little group to succumb to death, but he won't be the last. By the looks of Grantaire, lying pale and sweaty on his mattress, he'll have company soon enough. 

"Are _you_ hurt, Enjolras?" Joly asks in his sweet, nervous way.

"I'm fine." He hardly thinks he would even notice if he were. "How is Grantaire?"

Joly glances at Combeferre before answering honestly; "not good."

Someone takes Bahorel from him as Enjolras crosses the room, his focus now on the barely living instead of the already dead. Perhaps there will be time for grief later. Bahorel's body ends up mere feet from where Grantaire is still struggling for his life, on the next mattress over. Their dead and their wounded have come face to face. 

"Is he conscious?"

"Sometimes. He flickers in and out."

"How about now?"

"I think so."

Enjolras crosses the room on sure feet, but with a trembling heart. He's not sure he can stand to have a second friend die in his arms today.

Joly calls after him quietly, "Be gentle with him."

And Grantaire is awake, though barely. It seems they didn't have to use the cow stomach, but found something else to seal the wound. His entire torso is wrapped in bandages, seeped with blood, and where the bandages don't cover there is dark purple bruising. He's so so pale, especially when juxtaposed with the stains on his bandages and clothes. But he is alive, and Enjolras is thankful for that.

Enjolras places himself by his friend's bedside, carefully arranging himself to hide Bahorel's corpse from sight. Grantaire doesn't need to see that, not right away. "Grantaire?"

He opens his eyes weakly and smiles. There are streaks of tears on his face, dried but still visible. 

"Apollo, thank god."

"How are you?" Grantaire laughs lightly in response and shrugs, waving his hand towards his wounds. Enjolras shakes his head, feeling foolish. 

"And you, Apollo?" His voice is quiet, raw, and Enjolras feels inclined to lean forward to hear him. 

In response, Enjolras does not address himself at all: "The barricade stands, the guard has been repelled. For the moment, at least, our position remains secure... We living still out-number the dead, but you should know... Bahorel cannot be counted among us." 

The smile falls. Maybe it was wrong to even mention it. Perhaps his word choice was incorrect. Was there a way to make this blow lighter? In any case, the words are said and it is too late to take them back.

"Oh." 

Enjolras, after a hesitation, reaches out to take Grantaire's hand; "I'm sorry, Grantaire."

"He was a good friend. Took more than one broken rib for me." They share a rueful smile. Bahorel, wealthy and languid Bahorel, who enjoyed trouble for trouble's sake, who loved to brawl and laugh, and was a _good friend_. He twists his body so Grantaire can look upon his good friend, laid silently at his side. 

They share a moment of silence together as they look upon Bahorel and remember him.

"Thank you, Enjolras," Grantaire says, breaking the reverie.

"For what? You're the one who saved my life." 

Grantaire shrugs, though it seems to hurt him. 

"For being here." 

There's blood spattered across his cheek. Enjolras almost reaches to wipe it away, but doesn't in the end.

"Why did you do that, Grantaire? What good did it do?" 

"Are you alright?" Grantaire asks. "Are you alive, Enjolras?" Sitting with tense shoulders, Enjolras nods and the urge to cry swells in him, though he contains it. "That's what good it did. That's why I did it. I wouldn't have it any other way." 

"Grantaire, I never wanted... I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." 

"You're going to be alright, aren't you?" 

"I don't know. I don't think so. I feel full of blood." 

"Don't say that," Enjolras says, with a sad shake of his head. His composure is crumbling, and it embarrasses him. 

"Well, you're not going to be alright either, are you?" Grantaire's breathing has gotten shallower over the course of their conversation, more and more labored and difficult, and his voice has grown softer with the effort. "Maybe it wasn't worth it, then, to merely prolong the inevitable. But still, I think I'd rather die first than have to see you as I am now." 

Enjolras interrupts-- "You don't have to talk anymore. You should rest." 

But the air in the cafe is restless, and in a moment Grantaire is speaking again: 

"I did sketches of you all, you know," He sighs, unabashedly staring at Enjolras' face. "So if any of you fell on the barricade, a heroic death in the name of the republic, future artists could paint accurate scenes of your bravery and heroism. People will think I was exaggerating with you." 

Enjolras wants to scoff, but smiles instead. The way things were heading, no one would remember them at all, let alone paint their deeds and deaths. No one will ever paint portraits of him. His face-- and his ideals and hopes and friends-- will disappear with his life.

"The sketches are safe with my sister, in the south, for posterity. I sent them off weeks ago." 

"All of us?" 

"Of course."

"Even little Gavroche?" 

"Certainly. Funny Marius too, just in case." 

"What about yourself? Did you draw yourself?" 

This stopped Grantaire in his tracks, and then he laughed. Or attempted to. 

"Oh no, Apollo. I never expected to die a heroic death." 

"Well--" 

Grantaire stops him; "Yes. Well. How embarrassing." He gives a sheepish shrug. "No one would want to paint my ugly mug anyway. The beautiful Apollo, yes, and his noble lieutenants. Not the wretched cynic. Let daring Bahorel take my place in the stories and paintings," he says wistfully, turning his head to look at his fallen friend. "Let it be said that he died for you, and not for nothing." 

"Not for nothing," Enjolras corrects. "For freedom."

"Yes," Grantaire says, his voice for once lacking sneer or derision. "For freedom. And for a good fight."

Enjolras allows a smile to crinkle his eyes; "Yes, that too."

They fall into silence. 

"This the most I've ever seen you smile." 

Enjolras holds Grantaire's hand and looks at him, at his tired eyes and the dark circles smudged beneath them, at his dark curls of hair and the line of his jaw.

Eventually:

"Don't leave me, Enjolras. Not while I can notice it." Before he can answer, Grantaire continues. "And live, if you can. Please. Please live."

"I'll do my best," is the most Enjolras can promise, and even that feels like a lie. "But remember, it is good and sweet to die for your country."

Grantaire sighs, rolling his eyes over to Bahorel momentarily before returning to boring holes in Enjolras' features. "It was good and sweet to die for you."

"Stop that."

"I don't regret it, Enjolras. I'm glad I did it. You're more valuable than me in any conceivable world. It is better that you live than me." 

" _Stop_ ," he insists, but Grantaire continues, holding tightly to Enjolras' hand and wrist. His eyes are wild and desperate, and steeped in exhaustion. His voice is thin and getting more ragged with every word. His breaths come as hard pulls of air and each word sounds like a struggle. 

"You are beautiful and noble and pure. I am dirt compared to you and it is my greatest pleasure to lie at your feet and worship you and die for you." 

It feels as though all the breath has been stripped from his lungs, and Enjolras staggers, though he is seated. His head reels. He is embarrassed. He is sad. His chest is tight as if he were the one who had been shot and could not breathe. Grantaire's grip on wrist is hard enough to hurt, and he is glad to feel it.

Something in his heart breaks as he looks at Grantaire, and then repairs itself when he looks away. 

"You embarrass me and wrongly flatter me... But you are not dirt, Grantaire. And I am thankful for what you have done for me. All of it."

Combeferre chooses that moment to come over, his hands stained with blood and his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. He puts a hand on Enjolras' shoulder, and Enjolras jumps as if he had forgotten there were other people in the room. 

"May I speak with you?" Enjolras gives Grantaire another lingering look, and then nods and stands. He and Combeferre take two steps away, and speak in low whispers. 

"What do you think?" Enjolras asks, finding that he can't quite come out and ask the question directly: Will he live?

"It's touch and go. But he seems to be stable for now. It's hard to say. If we survive here and can get him proper help... I might dare to say I'm confident, in that case. He may last. Joly isn't as positive."

"Joly's always thinks the worst." He looks back over his shoulder to Grantaire, who seems to have slipped from consciousness. "He seems strong. He's resilient. He'll be fine, won't he?" 

Combeferre shrugs, honestly unsure; "He's bleeding a lot, Enjolras. Inside and out." He turns to the other bleeding young men who need his help, and moves to go to them, but Enjolras catches his sleeve. 

"It's his lung, isn't it?"

"Yes. And that's very serious." Combeferre pulls free, gives Enjolras a comforting squeeze on his shoulder, and then goes off to assist those he can.

 

The night passes slowly and quietly. Occasionally Enjolras goes out to check on the health of the barricade-- their gunpowder supplies and the movements of the National Guard-- but mainly he remains in the cafe, helping Joly with the wounded and keeping an eye on Grantaire, who flutters in and out of waking. 

The night wears on and Enjolras sits, cross-legged on the floor like a boy, between the dead and the dying. To his left is Grantaire, still wheezing away with great effort, his brow furrowed and hot with fever, his skin slick with sweat but shivering. Despite all initial improvement and promise, Grantaire's condition had plummeted over the past few hours and it seemed sure now that he would succumb to his wounds, and probably soon. To his right lay Bahorel, brave, strong, reckless Bahorel, now so still and cold and dead.

It was rare to see Bahorel without some damage-- a black eye or bruised cheek, a split lip or busted knuckles-- and yet there he was, utterly devoid of all those familiar wounds. He had come to the barricade fresh and whole, and now lay white and still and drenched in blood from one single, horrible wound at the side of his chest. Earlier in the evening, Joly had half undressed him to examine the wound. He had said with a stutter that it was important to understand fatal wounds so they could be better treated in the future and perhaps need not be fatal any longer-- but he had quickly become overwhelmed by the idea of performing an autopsy on a close friend. The grief was too much, as was the moaning need of the wounded but still living. 

Brooding in the quiet of the cafe, everyone else sleeping or out on watch, Enjolras sits with his back to the door, though his his ears are pricked for any sound of activity. He should be out on the barricade with Courfeyrac and Feuilly, watching and preparing and planning, but... but he can't bring himself to leave. 

He stared at Bahorel's utterly still frame for what felt like hours. All around him lay men he knew just as well, equally grievously hurt, and yet it was Bahorel he stayed by, Bahorel he could not help but sit vigil for. Just yesterday Bahorel had been at his side cataloging rifles and sabres. Just yesterday Bahorel had been buying wine and showing off his latest hideous waistcoat. Just yesterday he had been alive, and today he was dead. Enjolras had watched him die, and now watched him dead. 

Enjolras ran a finger down one of those excessive sideburns; Bahorel did nothing by halves. Yesterday he had been alive and laughing, and today he was utterly the opposite. He glanced at Grantaire. 

Well. The same could be said of all of them. 

A morbid need rises in him, and while his left hand is still tightly holding to Grantaire's, his right comes to rest upon Bahorel's chest, feeling the smatter of chest hair and the cold, firm skin underneath. After a furtive, guilty glance over his shoulder, Enjolras slides his hand to the wound and presses just the pad of his forefinger into the dark scratch. There is no resistance, and he presses further. His entire finger disappears between cold flesh, just under the pectoral, through the rib. He can feel the scrape of shattered bone. 

In that moment, he could feel what it was to strike at flesh with bayonet, strike and penetrate and kill. 

He could feel what it was to kill him.

"I did this," He says to no one, realizing that the moment he called to Bahorel on the barricade was the moment of distraction when the bayonet found him. Enjolras presses another finger into the wound and digs in, loosing knuckles. His fingertips find the last remnants of warmth deep within Bahorel's core, and it startles him. His eyes flicker back up to Bahorel's face, then to his own hand half within his friend's _corpse_ and with a rising nausea and feeling of disgust he sharply removes his fingers. 

There is hardly any blood on him-- a little at his fingertips, a few clots stuck to the sides of his fingers, but not at all the mess of red he had half expected. His stomach gives a wretched churn and he scrubs his fingers clean on his trousers. 

He pointedly keeps his focus and attention on Grantaire for the rest of the night, guilt heavy in his chest, along with the feeling that he had as good as killed his friend with his own hands. 

He pressed the heel of his hand to Grantaire's damp bandages, and the man gave a wince and a whimper in his sleep.

"Still alive then," Enjolras sighed. "Good."

 

In the pre-dawn light, everything falls apart at once. 

Enjolras is inside the cafe, holding Grantaire's hand when the call comes over the barricade. Give up your guns or die. Last chance. His heart clenches. He hears Courfeyrac respond in some flippantly brave fashion. 

He looks to Grantaire, who hasn't opened his eyes in over six hours, and hasn't moved in three. His breathing is unbearably shallow. It's over, and he knows it. The barricade, Grantaire's life... all of it is done. It's slipping through his fingers and there's nothing he can do to grab hold again. All that's left is to go make a final stand with what little remains of his own life. 

Every other able bodied man has left the cafe and gone out to help in the final fight. It's just him and a bunch of corpses and almost corpses. 

Grantaire is still breathing, still breathing, but weakly. He's pale as a ghost. His chest is soaked in blood, but still it rises and falls, lifts and drops, stubbornly still alive.

Their efforts, all their efforts, have been in vain. 

"Thank you, Grantaire." Enjolras says, and leans down to press a kiss to his friends forehead. His skin is hot under his lips. A kiss to the forehead, and then the cheek, and then to the back of his hand, which he still is holding. "And I'm sorry." He is sorry that Grantaire has wasted his life to save him, is sorry that in the end it came to nothing, that he has turned out to be a disappointment. Enjolras presses one last kiss to Grantaire-- this one to his still, pale lips and walks out into the street.

The barricade collapses quickly, and Enjolras ushers who he can into the cafe. Courfeyrac falls to a spatter of grapeshot to his back even as his hand pushes Enjolras towards the cafe; Feuilly takes a bayonet to his thigh. His friends are disappearing all around him. It's chaotic and loud and frightful. 

Enjolras still has blood on his face from the previous day, and he sends everyone upstairs, saying that he'll break the steps after they've gone and will do his best to hold the guardsmen off. "Be quiet," he whispers fervently; "Escape." Combeferre, amongst the rag tag group, hesitates but then turns and goes up the stairs, pushing Joly up ahead of him. Enjolras doesn't really think it will work, but he hopes that this gesture will save perhaps one of his friends lives. That his stand on the ground floor will give them enough time to escape, somehow.

He prays it will, knowing it probably won't. 

The National Guard corner him in the back of the ground floor of the cafe, and the entire place falls utterly silent. 

Utterly, utterly silent. 

"You are the leader here, are you not?" one of them demands of him. He nods vigorously. 

"And you are the last?" asks another. Again, he nods, hoping his friends upstairs will remain silent and this ploy will help them remain alive.

Behind him, Grantaire lays on a mattress, bloodied and white. 

"Shoot me," Enjolras says, lifting his chin proudly. He kneels before them, spreading his arms and presenting his chest in supplication. "And be done with it." 

Falling slightly to sit on his heels, Enjolras reaches behind him to place a hand on Grantaire's chest, hoping to feel... anything. But his chest is still. 

That's it then. 

If his hands start to shake, it's not due to fear. It's grief, and it's overwhelming. His fingers close tightly around Grantaire's cooling hand and he grits his teeth. 

"Well?" Enjolras demands, resolutely facing his death. He keeps his eyes open and forward, despite an impulse to cringe. "Do it!" 

They do, and Enjolras collapses back to join the lines of dead young men within the cafe.

 _It was sweet and good_ , he thinks in his final moments, as blood pours of out of his chest and pain tears through every part of him, as his head comes to rest at Grantaire's hip; _Yes,_ he thinks, _It was sweet and good to die for my friends._

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive what is no doubt immensely inaccurate medicine. Grantaire is meant to have a sucking chest wound, which are HORRIFYING, and he definitely would not have lasted as long as he gets in this fic.


End file.
